Minnesota DFLers think they have found
Republican gubernatorial candidate Norm Coleman's Achilles heel.
So what is Coleman's supposed weakness? At least until last week,
when he appeared to soften his position, Coleman supported
replacing Minnesota's current subjective discretionary concealed
handgun law with objective standards regarding training and
criminal background checks to determine who is granted a permit.
Ted Mondale claims that Coleman "threatens the safety and
security of our families." Mike Freeman says it will lead to
"impulsive gun violence." DFL radio ads assert that
Coleman is putting "our children at risk." Among DFL
gubernatorial candidates, only Doug Johnson supported Coleman's
position.

Given the horrific crimes committed with guns,
such opposition is understandable. But much of the public policy
debate on guns is driven by lopsided news coverage that mentions
only the crimes committed with guns. Usually ignored are the over
2 million times each year that Americans use guns defensively.
Dramatic stories of mothers who use guns to stop carjackers from
kidnapping their children seldom even make the local news.

Police play an extremely important role in
reducing crime, though they virtually always arrive at the crime
scene after the crime has been committed. The question is what
would-be victims should do when they must face a criminal by
themselves. Passive behavior, particularly for women, is not the
wisest course of action. The probability of serious injury from a
criminal confrontation is 2.5 times greater for women offering no
resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Allowing people
to defend themselves also deters criminals from attacking in the
first place. Guns enable "bad guys" to kill more
easily, but they also allow the innocent to defend themselves.
The crucial question becomes: What is the net effect? Do guns
deter crime or encourage it? Are more lives saved or lost?
Anecdotal evidence cannot resolve this debate.

To provide a more systematic answer, I
published a book on gun control that analyzed FBI crime
statistics for all 3,054 American counties from 1977 to 1994 as
well as extensive information on accidental gun deaths and
suicides. The study examined states that changed from
discretionary to objective concealed-handgun laws. Thirty-one
states now have these "right-to-carry" rules.

The findings were dramatic. The more people who
obtain permits over time, the more violent crime rates decline.
After concealed handgun laws have been in effect for five years,
murders declined by at least 15 percent, rapes by 9 percent and
robberies by 11 percent. These are the drops over and above the
recent national declines and after such things as changing arrest
and conviction rates, demographics, and other gun-control laws
have been accounted for. The reductions in violent crime are
greatest in the most crime-prone, most urban areas. Women and
blacks gained by far the most from this ability to protect
themselves. The benefits of concealed handguns are not limited to
those who carry them or use them in self-defense. That these
weapons are concealed keeps criminals uncertain as to whether
potential victims will be able to defend themselves with lethal
force.

What about the concern in DFL's ad about
"allowing virtually anyone to carry a concealed gun"?
The evidence in other states indicates that those willing to go
through the permit process are extremely law-abiding. Permits are
revoked for any reason very rarely, and most of these revocations
have nothing to do with improper use of a firearm.

Concerns that permit holders would shoot others
after traffic accidents or angry-drivers-cut-off-in-traffic
shootings have proven unfounded. Despite millions of people now
holding permits and some states having issued permits for as long
as 60 years, only one permit holder has ever used a concealed
handgun after a traffic accident, and that case involved
self-defense.

No permit holders have ever shot at, let alone
killed, a police officer; instead, permit holders have on
occasion saved the lives of police officers who were being
attacked by criminals. I found no evidence that concealed handgun
laws caused either accidental gun deaths or suicides to increase.
A system of objective standards also has an important advantage
over discretionary rules that let public officials decide on a
case-by-case basis who deserves a permit. Discretionary rules
have made it especially difficult for the poor and minorities,
who are not as well connected politically but who face the
greatest threats from crime, to get permits.

Surely one of the most terrifying incidents
anyone can witness involves the shootings of multiple victims in
a public place. Victims recount their feelings of utter
helplessness as a gunman methodically shoots his cowering prey.
Some countries have reacted to these events by banning guns,
though others, such as Israel, have taken to licensing their
citizens to carry concealed handguns. Indeed, much of the impetus
for concealed-handgun laws in the United States during the 1980s
arose from the belief that these laws would prevent such attacks.

Using data on these shootings for all states
from 1977 to 1995, incidents in which at least two people were
killed or injured in a public place were also studied. Shootings
that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were
excluded. The United States averaged 21 such shootings per year,
with an average of 1.8 people killed and 2.7 wounded in each one.
A range of different gun laws as well as other methods of
deterrence, such as the death penalty, were examined. However,
only the concealed-handgun laws succeeded in reducing deaths and
injuries from these shootings. When states passed them, the
number of multiple-victim public shootings declined by 84
percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted by 90 percent,
injuries by 82 percent. Shootings still occur in places like
schools, were guns are illegal. Higher arrest rates and increased
use of the death penalty slightly reduced the incidence of these
events, but the effects were never statistically significant.

While national surveys of police show they
support concealed handgun laws by a 3-1 margin, the experience
after passage of concealed-handgun laws has caused even former
opponents in law enforcement to change their positions. A typical
response was provided in December by Glenn White, president of
the Dallas Police Association. He said, "I lobbied against
the law in 1993 and 1995 because I thought it would lead to
wholesale armed conflict. That hasn't happened. All the horror
stories I thought would come to pass didn't happen . . . I think
it's worked out well, and that says good things about the
citizens who have permits. I'm a convert."

To date, I have made my data available to
academics at 36 universities. Everyone who has tried has been
able to replicate my findings, and only three have written pieces
critical of my general approach. Although the vast majority of
researchers concur that concealed-handgun laws significantly
deter crime, not even these three critics have argued that
allowing concealed-handgun laws increases crime.

Before my work, the largest previous study
examined 170 cities within one single year and found results
similar to my own. Ted Mondale frequently cites the only study
that has found any category of crime to increase. Yet that study
picked a total of only five counties from three states, with no
explanation on how those five counties were chosen, and accounted
for no other factors that affect crime.

Both sides in the gun control debate have their
own anecdotal stories, and surely many hypothetical horror
stories will be raised before this campaign is through.
Fortunately these fears are easily disproved once one looks at
the experience in other states. The benefits are also equally
obvious. My estimates for Minnesota, based upon its
characteristics, indicate that a right-to-carry law would prevent
about 1,500 violent crimes each year.

- John R. Lott Jr. is the John M. Olin Law
and Economics fellow at the University of Chicago School of Law
and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime."

For further information
visit the Missouri Concealed Carry website at www.moccw.org or send email to .